


Outsider Art

by houselesbian



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Art, Explosions, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27788812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houselesbian/pseuds/houselesbian
Summary: Lucia took a moment to peer over at Galo’s sketch pad. Wild lines of orange and blue flowed across the page. Anatomy was a mere suggestion compared to Lucia’s more technically proficient, lifeless illustrations. Galo’s drawing looked like it might leap off its page. She felt a burst of frustration. Why couldn’t she do that? Dozens of art classes hadn’t gotten her any closer to figuring it out.Lucia, Galo and the origins of the Matoi Tech.
Relationships: Lucia Fex & Galo Thymos
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	Outsider Art

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic for Promezine and decided to finally post it! I love Lucia and Galo's implied friendship, this is my take on how it began.

It was always a blessing when work was slow with Burning Rescue, but downtime made Lucia feel antsy and listless. Any chores that might have occupied her had already been completed by little grey robots that she’d created while bored. 

The drinks robot rolled over to her chair and trilled. It raised its tray. She shook her head and it purred sadly and retreated to the kitchen. 

They were decent robots; energy efficient and intelligent enough to pass a Turing test if anyone asked them. They were just… grey. Not exciting to look at. She was working on it.

“Does anyone want to get pizza after work?” Remi asked, as he lay face-up on the rec room floor. 

“Can’t,” Lucia said. “I’m going to a drawing class.”

“That’s a cool thing to do,” the Newbie replied. 

Newbie had been with them for two weeks and thus far there had been no indication that his energy had a limit. He was, at that moment, performing one armed pull-ups on a bar he’d attached to the doorway. Lucia felt exhausted just looking at him. Still, he was a nice guy. 

“You can join, if you feel like it,” Lucia asked. 

He froze mid pull-up. “For real?”

“Sure,” Lucia replied. 

“Really real?”

“If your arms are still working by then,” she said.

He nodded thoughtfully, “good point! Hey, rep-bot, could you reset at the halfway point today?”

The counter bot beeped as Galo reached two hundred reps on his left arm. With a musical trill it set the count to zero. Newbie switched to his right arm and began doing pull ups again. 

* * *

  
  


Lucia carefully drew a line connecting shoulder to elbow on her figure drawing. The evening’s model was a bony man that she’d seen before and liked to draw. There wasn’t much to hide his structure, which made him easier to understand than people who carried more weight. She raised her pencil to check her proportions. 

“Excellent observation as usual,” Ms Rose, the art teacher, said as she did her rounds. “How do you feel about the balance?”

Lucia frowned as she looked back at the model and saw that it was off. 

“I don’t know why I find this so difficult,” Lucia groused. 

“You have a very schematic approach,” Ms Rose said, gently. “The heaviest part of the human figure is the head, if you think of a line that passes from the head down through the rest of the body, that may help. Try breaking the body into rough blocks, first. Keep an eye on the distribution of weight.”

Lucia noted the advice down in neat, block script next to her drawing. Ms Rose smiled approvingly and stepped one easel over to where Newbie was wildly drawing shapes in brightly coloured crayon. Lucia was glad one of them was having fun. 

“Oh,” Ms Rose gasped quietly. 

Out the corner of her eye, she saw an expression of surprised interest bloom on Ms Rose’s face. Ms Rose tilted her head from side to side, to take in his work from multiple angles, her brows drawn in concentration. 

“You have a wonderful command of colour,” Ms Rose said. “There’s so much energy in your work.”

“Aw thanks,” he said, rubbing a crayon-stained hand through his hair. “I’ve never done this before, it’s a lot of fun!”

Ms Rose was silent for a moment. 

“Never?” she said. 

“Nup,” he chirped. 

“No highschool classes?” 

“I used to go for walks instead.” 

“I see,” Ms Rose said, thoughtfully. “Apologies, I don’t think I caught your name before.”

“I’m Galo!” he said.

“Galo, have you heard of the term ‘outsider art’?” 

“‘Fraid not.”

“I would love to have a chat with you after class, if you have time,” Ms Rose said. 

“Sure!” he replied, smiling sunnily. 

Ms Rose put a hand over her heart and took a deep breath, before she moved on to her next student. Lucia took a moment to peer over at Galo’s sketch pad. Wild lines of orange and blue flowed across the page. Anatomy was a mere suggestion compared to Lucia’s more technically proficient, lifeless illustrations. Galo’s drawing looked like it might leap off its page. She felt a burst of frustration. Why couldn’t she do that? Dozens of art classes hadn’t gotten her any closer to figuring it out. 

* * *

  
  
Lucia waited for Galo outside the classroom. He’d offered to give her a lift home and she’d accepted. Galo appeared fifteen minutes after class finished, with an armful of books and Ms Rose close behind him. She was beaming. 

“You don’t have to read all of them,” she said. “They’re mostly about pre-cataclysm art, but I think you’ll find their bold use of colour appealing to your sensibilities.”

“Thanks, Eugenia!” Galo replied. 

_ Eugenia? _

“I want you to look at this one in particular,” she pointed to a hard-cover labelled  _ Art and History of a Far East Island Nation _ , “it will give you an idea of what you can achieve with a more developed sense of form.”

Galo made a soft  _ ooh _ sound and juggled his stack so he could pull that book to the top of it. He looked at it with interest. 

“Take your time to look them over, there’s no rush,” Ms Rose said. 

“For sure!” Galo replied. 

Ms Rose turned her head and saw Lucia leaning against the wall opposite her. She waved, a warm smile on her face. 

“Sorry for making you wait, Lucia,” Ms Rose said. 

“It’s cool,” Lucia replied. 

She had spent the time thinking about how to make her next robot interesting. Maybe she could go wild and splash paint on it, or make a protective mesh that  _ looked _ like she’d splashed paint on it. Testing would be required. 

“Can’t wait to see you both next week!” Ms Rose said.

Maybe in orange or blue? Galo’s drawing had looked very bright and entertaining. Did that count as plagiarism? 

“It was lovely to meet you,” Galo replied. 

Lucia followed Galo to his bike, her bag over one arm and her phone in hand as she madly typed her ideas down before she could forget them. Maybe a palette generator would be useful? She didn’t have the energy for colour theory. It seemed like a rabbit hole. 

A helmet appeared in front of her eyes. She flinched. 

“This is us,” Galo said sheepishly. 

Lucia put her phone away and took the helmet in her hands. Galo’s bike was directly beside her. She’d almost walked past it. 

“I got in the zone, soz,” she said. 

“That’s cool!” Galo replied. “Have to show me what you’re working on, later.”

Lucia hummed noncommittally and put the helmet on. She clung to Galo’s back on the ride home, mentally considering improvements she could make to his motorcycle as the night air cut through her like a knife. 

“Have a good night!” Galo chirped when he dropped her off. 

“Yeah, sure,” Lucia replied, still distracted by her thoughts.

Galo waited until she was inside to drive off. She fell asleep on her keyboard at 4am, and woke to ten pages full of the letter ‘m’. 

* * *

Burning Rescue’s coffee was bad, but it was plentiful and  _ free _ . She fully recognised the importance of eight hours sleep in her line of work, but lately it had been difficult. An engineer’s prerogative was to solve problems, so her current block was unsettling. 

Lucia slumped over to the rec room, which had a couch and hopefully some company. She needed social interaction to get her thoughts moving. The first thing she saw, as she entered the room, was a tall crest of blue hair, rising over the back of the sofa. 

“Morning,” Lucia said. 

Galo looked up, then around, as if searching for someone else she might be talking to.

“Hey,” he said, quietly.

He had a book in his lap. 

“Wassat?” Lucia asked

Galo perked up and turned the book towards her. The open page was filled with intense illustrations of men with bulging eyes and elaborate costumes. 

“It’s one of the books Eugenia gave me,” Galo replied. “There’s a whole section dedicated to ancient firefighters.”

“Huh!” Lucia shuffled closer. 

“They used to fight fires with barely any equipment at all!” Galo said reverentially.

“Wow.” That sounded like a terrible idea.

“Yeah! So brave! And the names are familiar, look,” he pointed at a word on the page, ‘Matsuyama’, “that was my mum’s surname! Her family might have been from that island.”

A lot of knowledge had been lost to the cataclysm, the least of which was the idea of countries in general. Cultural details had faded through the generations as survivors focused on recovery. Connections were difficult to find and often nebulous.

“That’s really cool,” Lucia replied. 

“I’m so glad Eugenia lent me these,” Galo said. 

Lucia looked more closely at the illustration of Galo’s ancestor. He wore a padded costume with a pointed hat and held a bulky spear. Or was it? Whatever it was, the point was enormous and it seemed to have a trailing skirt of ribbons. 

“What’s that for?” she asked, as she pointed. 

“That’s a matoi,” Galo replied. “It was like a flag. One guy would climb up onto the roofs and wave it, so people would know exactly where a fire was. Direct the firefighters in, civilians out, kind of thing.”

Opinion retracted, that was clever; innovative for the time, even. Also dangerous. 

“Nice,” Lucia said.

“I had some ideas about it, actually,” Galo added, his voice turned soft and almost unsure. 

“Oh yeah? show,” Lucia replied. 

She’d worked at Burning Rescue for over a year, and while she knew she was a valued part of the team, most of her coworkers didn’t take much interest in her process. Lucia wasn’t sure precisely what Galo could contribute, but she was game to find out. 

“You mean it?” Galo asked. 

Lucia nodded, “yeah, ‘course.”

Galo closed his book and set it down on the coffee table, at the top of a pile of other artbooks which seemed bigger than the one Ms Rose had given him the day before. When she looked closer, she saw library markings on the sides. Galo pulled a large sketchbook from the middle of the stack and opened it up. 

“Burning Rescue mechs are slow, because they need to be able to carry and support a lot of weight,” Galo said. “You wouldn’t necessarily want them to move too fast, because of the force involved.”

It was an unexpectedly insightful observation. 

“But what if Mad Burnish turned up and the team needed to evacuate? You’d want someone to run interference to cover a retreat.”

Lucia nodded. Galo smiled and opened his sketchbook. The first page was full of wild sketches that looked like the matoi from Galo’s book. Some flickered with red and blue emergency lights, one had ribbons which whirled like a fan and another-

“Is that a gun?” she asked. 

“Ice gun,” Galo replied.

_ Munitions! _

“Heck yes!” Lucia said. “What else you got?”

Galo smiled like a golden retriever and turned to the next page. The matoi featured again, but this time it broke into a hundred pieces which flew across the paper, all pointed towards a small, oddly-proportioned figure in a BR uniform. Galo flicked to the next page. At the centre was a pointy-headed mech, in white and red, it’s fist thrown towards the viewer, frozen in the midst of a bone-breaking punch. 

It was  _ so _ cool. 

“This is great!” Lucia cried.

“It is?” Galo asked. 

Lucia slammed back the remains of her, thankfully cooled, coffee and threw her cup towards the kitchen. The cup-catching bot caught it in a silicone-lined claw. 

“We should make this,” Lucia said. “Now.”

“Now?” Galo asked.

“Yeah, now. I’ve never made my own mech before. It’ll be sick.”

“That’s good right?” Galo said, enthusiastically.

“It’s awesome,” Lucia replied. 

Galo’s face bloomed once more into a brilliant, dazzling grin. 

* * *

The design took two weeks to hammer out. Galo had a creativity that Lucia deeply admired, but his proportions were weird and inconsistent. They’d spent a day cutting cardboard to get a feel for how large the head casing should be. That had been fun. Lucia only cut herself twice and Galo bandaged her up both times.

The prototype phase was even better. Galo knew how a body moved in armour and it informed the way she shaped the ceramic plates she used for shielding. Aerodynamics were another problem entirely. Fourteen dummies lost their stuffing during the flight testing phase. 

“It’s so beautiful,” Galo said, as the last dummy soared through the sky and crashed into a cedar. 

“It really is,” Lucia replied. 

They finalised the colour scheme last, over beer and pizza. Lucia made a model out of paper clay and then held up slices of Inferno Volcano Margherita Mega-Max as Galo painted it in artful lines of red, blue and white. 

Their finished prototype was more than Lucia had ever dreamed of. 

“I think we’re ready for field testing,” Lucia said, with great satisfaction. 

“This is going to go great,” Galo replied. 

* * *

  
  
The training building smelt like toast and looked like a demolition site. 

“How much trouble are we in over this?” Galo asked. 

“It’s fine,” Lucia said. “You want to make an omelette, you got to explode a few buildings.”

In front of them, a wall collapsed with a sad splat, sending playful eddies of dust into the air.

“Do you think it’s an issue with the thrusters?” Lucia asked. 

Galo shook his head. “They’re sensitive, but I can account for that. It was difficult to keep a steady trajectory once I was off the ground. That means there’s a balance issue.”

“Sure it’s not you?”

Galo gave her an uncharacteristically dry look. She remembered, belatedly, that Governor Foresight had recommended him to the team. 

“Alright, so it’s not you,” Lucia conceded. “How’s it handle on the ground?”

“Quick but temperamental,” Galo replied.

“Might be time to go back to dummy testing,” Lucia said. 

They quietly sat and watched the training building smolder. Their mech stood silently beside them, it’s paint shining white in the sun, still spotless after everything they’d done to it. 

“I think we should get someone else to look at it,” Galo suggested. “Fresh eyes.”

Lucia nodded, thoughtfully. 

“Not sure who, though,” Galo said. 

A thought occurred, bright and obvious. Lucia smiled to herself. 

“I know exactly who to ask,” she replied. 

* * *

  
  
  
“Oh my,” Ms Rose said.

Lucia and Galo hadn’t stopped going to art class even though they were busy with their personal project. Galo’s observation had improved in leaps and bounds and Lucia had finally started to learn what colours were. Ms Rose had been pleased to offer them outside feedback. 

“You made this yourselves?” Ms Rose asked. 

“It’s my first free-standing mech,” Lucia said. 

Ms Rose nodded, and then turned her head carefully, the way she had the first night she’d seen Galo’s illustrations. Her brow furrowed as she took careful steps around the body of the mech. 

“Hm,” Ms Rose said. 

“Is that bad?” Galo whispered. 

Lucia could only shrug. 

Ms Rose folded her arms once she was back to the front of the mech again. Lucia felt Galo stand up straighter beside her and quickly did the same. 

“Come have a look from the side,” Ms Rose said. “It’s easier to see there.”

They’d brought it over with a copter because of the testing issues, but it didn’t need any support to stand. The top was heavy, but they’d compensated for that by reinforcing the body and the legs. It looked stable. 

“I can’t see it,” Lucia admitted. 

“Think about a line through the body,” Ms Rose said.

Lucia held her hand up and drew a curved line through the air that passed from the head of the mech, through the torso and down to the feet. Her arm moved broadly across the horizontal plane.  _ Ah _ . 

“I’m not meant to bend like that,” Galo said. 

“I balanced it properly, just not with you in it,” Lucia replied. 

“Am I lucky to be alive?” Galo asked, quietly.

Ms Rose stepped away from the mech again and did another turn around the body. 

“Balance aside, it’s an exciting work,” she said. “Dynamic use of form and colour. The exaggerated proportions are pleasing to the eye. Outsider art.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Lucia replied. 

“Art outside the establishment, that strays beyond convention to create work which is exceptional in its own right,” Galo said, as if by rote.

“And you did so in partnership,” Ms Rose added. “This is a supremely thoughtful combination of your respective skills.”

“It’s always fun to work with a friend,” Lucia replied. 

“You mean me?” Galo pointed towards his chest, eyes wide with surprise. 

“Who else?” Lucia asked.

She almost felt insulted, until she thought about Galo’s enthusiasm and how it had waxed and waned after they’d gone to their first art class together. It hadn’t occurred to her that his zeal might be a front for insecurity. She remembered, to her own displeasure, that she’d been dismissive of him when they met.

“You’re a really good friend to me,” Lucia said.

“Oh,” Galo replied, softly.

“Yeah,” Lucia said. “And once we figure this out, we can make the next thing. We’ve got tonnes of ideas.”

Galo’s grin was blinding. 

“Better get started, then,” he replied.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Comments give me life!


End file.
